


Confidence Game

by Auchen



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Con Artists, F/M, Gen, Private Investigators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 10:12:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10660410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Auchen/pseuds/Auchen
Summary: Private investigator Elizabeth Keen has sought out the help of fellow PI Marston Phillips to help her recover a client's stolen property. Con artist Raymond Reddington is trying to evade two violently angry men that he scammed, and he thinks that Elizabeth's predicament just might work in his favor.





	Confidence Game

**Author's Note:**

> This is my entry for Day 4 (AU Day) of Lizzington Week! I came up with this Private Investigator/Con Artist AU a few months ago. This AU (as well as this fic) is inspired by the pilot episode of the 80s TV show Remington Steele, as well as the various talks 221beefcakes and I have had about it over on Tumblr!

Well, the man with the fedora certainly _looked_ like he’d been ripped from the screen of a noir film, but was he really Marston Phillips? So far, he seemed to check all the boxes that her contact, Todd, had described to Liz.

For one thing, he was sitting in the lobby of this old, out of the way hotel–the Danvers. Todd said that Marston liked this place because it was from the 1930s and still looked it with the potted ferns sitting next to a few of the lobby sofas, and the plush, green chairs for the guests to sit in. But it wasn’t like a 30s hotel polished and kept up to date. No, it showed its age in the fading paint and dusty chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

But if what Todd said about Marston was true, he would like that aspect of the Danvers. He apparently loved playing up and indulging in the outdated, noir-ish stereotype that occasionally came with the territory when you said the words “private investigator” to someone. 

Whatever Marston’s eccentricities, Liz could let herself completely ignore them if he really was as good at sniffing out stolen jewelry. Her client, a rich, stiff woman named Mrs. Newstead, was applying pressure to Liz to find the ring and necklace in a timely manner, and if she didn’t, Mrs. Newstead threatened to, “Let all my friends know that the Keen Investigative Agency cannot be relied upon for any matters of importance.”

She had wanted to slap that frown off Mrs. Newstead’s pointed, narrow lips, but she simply smiled and promised she would do whatever possible to track down Mrs. Newstead’s stolen property, which is why she had reached out to Todd, an old friend from her…less than savory past. He’d gone straight too–he was a cook now–but he still kept in contact with some old friends who were in the criminal game, and he said Marston, another PI, was one of the best when it came to finding jewelry and the thieves that had taken it.

She glanced back down at her book. If she knew one thing from her hours and hours of surveillance, it was that you didn’t want the mark to know you were watching them like a hungry predator. Her eyes skimmed over the words, barely taking any of the information in.

That man had to be Marston, didn’t he? It would be too great a coincidence if there was _another_ middle aged man with a penchant for fedoras and black jackets that liked frequenting the Danvers. He was reading the newspaper and sipping coffee too.

Todd said he’d heard it was Marston’s noon day habit to go into the Danvers, sit down in the middle sofa next to the tallest fern, and drink his coffee and read the paper for half an hour.

This man fit the description and the pattern of Marston exactly.

She flicked to the next page and looked back up. The man was adjusting his hat and frowning at something in the paper. She glanced back down and bit her lip.

She’d watch him a minute longer, then she’d simply bite the bullet and go over to him.

* * *

It had simply been a lovely happenstance that the building he’d escaped into was one as atmospheric as this.

Red would’ve counted himself lucky if he simply managed to the evade two angry marks by slipping into a seedy apartment building. But a hotel? And a hotel like this, that almost seemed to exhale the smoke that seeped into its walls during the 30s? Oh, lady luck was certainly feeling very, very generous towards him today.

Perhaps she was making up for that unfortunate little incident two months ago when he’d jumped out of a car and rolled into a ditch filled with stagnant water.

Still, his elegant surroundings weren't going to make him let down his guard. There were still two men–Ives and Nikoli–after him, angry that he’d sold them a forged painting. He was sure they would be more persistent than other marks considering the fact that their necks were potentially about to be on the chopping block, as their buyer, a particularly temperamental drug lord, apparently didn’t suffer fools lightly–especially not fools that had allowed themselves to get conned.

Red rustled the newspaper, paging to the national news section, where there was the ever repetitive news about some horrible murder or some heinous war. There were many things that couldn’t always be accounted for, but there was also a certain pattern and circularity to people and life. 

But that’s what often made the con game so easy, wasn’t it?

He reached for his coffee that he’d set on the small table next to him, but he stopped an inch short when a shadow fell over his newspaper. His neck prickled, and his eyes stayed glued to the image of a smoldering, burning car. Maybe that thought about lady luck treating him kindly had been too arrogant, and he was about to look up and see Nikoli glaring down at him with those eyes that seemed perpetually watery. (Nikoli probably had some kind of condition. If his buyer didn’t off him, then whatever was wrong with his eyes surely would.)

However, when he tore his eyes away from the paper he was not met with the glare of an angry Russian, or a thin, mouse-y Englishman. In fact, it was something much preferable to either of those things–it was a _woman_. A very lovely woman, in fact. She had high cheekbones and a sharp jawline, and– _oh_ , those _eyes_. They were the sorts of eyes that lovesick poets wrote about.

But just because she was beautiful didn’t mean she was harmless. He, more than most, knew that. More than once he’d spent a spend a wonderful night with a woman that wanted a knife between his shoulder blades a week later.

Maybe Ives or Nikoli had heard about his penchant for dark haired women and had sent one to try and trick him into a hotel room where they lay in wait to put a bullet in his chest.

“Excuse me,” she said, glancing over her shoulder, then back over at him.

“Yes?” Red folded up the newspaper and lay it in his lap, giving her the most charming smile he could muster.

“I hope I’m not interrupting, but I was wondering if you were Marston Phillips,” she said, eyes wandering across his face and down to the newspaper and coffee.

He only paused for a moment, but in that moment several things flashed through his mind:

If this woman was sent by Ives and Nikoli, she probably would’ve batted her eyes at him and touched his jaw to lure him away, or she would’ve rammed a gun against his kidneys and forced him to walk out of the hotel.

She thought he was…someone else. Someone he’d heard of–Marston Phillips? The name sounded familiar. He thought it might’ve been a private investigator.

If she didn’t know him and thought he was another man then– _well_. This could be a golden opportunity indeed. Perhaps luck was on his side once more.

“Yes, I am,” he said, pushing the newspaper into the corner of the sofa and standing. He extended a hand towards her.

The woman shook his hand once, but firmly. He looked down at her arm. It was rather lean and somewhat toned, so she probably did more than just desk work, or she routinely went to the gym. Either way, it might be a bad idea to cross her.

She dropped her hand and dug it into her pocket, pulling out a card that she held out to him. He squinted at it for a moment, but took it from her and held it close to his eyes. At first glance, it looked like a driver’s licence, but once he looked it over more thoroughly, he saw that it was a private investigator’s licence. He hoped that this Elizabeth Keen wouldn’t ask for his. He could tell a potentially plausible excuse as to why he didn’t have it, but some PIs were more perceptive than the average person, so she might not buy whatever tale he spun.

He handed it back to her. “The photos on these things aren’t much more flattering than on a driver’s licence, are they?”

She rolled her eyes and pushed the licence back into her pocket. “Tell me about it. In that picture I look like I’m a little drunk or it’s a mugshot.”

He hummed. “If it _were_ a mugshot, I’d say it’s one of the prettiest ones I’ve seen.”

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow and cleared her throat. Red internally kicked himself. She didn’t know Marston, that was clear, but he didn’t know how much she _did_ know about Marston. Maybe he wasn’t a particularly flirtatious man, and that little comment could’ve tipped her off to the fact that he was lying. Until he knew more about this other PI, he needed to hold himself back.

“I’m having trouble finding something for a client, and a contact of mine told me that you might be able to help me,” she said, crossing her arms. A defensive, closed off pose. That wasn’t good. He needed to get her back.

“I could be able to help,” he said. A neutral, open statement–dropping bread crumbs to get her to open up again.

“Yeah?” Elizabeth cocked her head at him.

He tilted his head back at her, mouth twitching. He needed to give her something that would earn him some trust. That was the game–show them something real before taking what you wanted. “I once retrieved some stolen cash from a notably violent robber once. Does that satisfy you?”

“You could just be making that up.” Liz pointed a finger at him.

“Then have me find something of yours,” he said. “Mmm, perhaps that watch you’re wearing?”

It didn’t look particularly valuable, so it was possible she wouldn’t object much to taking it off and having him look for it. He had to work a bit to keep himself from smiling when she started working off the strap of the watch. 

She’d taken the bait.

“Turn around and I’ll hide it, but I’m keeping my eyes on you, so don’t try to sneak a peek while I’m hiding it,” she said, rubbing the bare spot on her wrist.

He pressed a hand to his chest. “I wouldn’t think of it.”

She spun a finger, indicating he should turn around, so he obeyed her command and faced the opposite side of the room, holding his hands behind his back. Red spent the next few minutes watching the woman at the reception desk staring at her computer with bleary eyes, occasionally tapping her finger against the mouse. He wondered if she was playing Solitaire or was scrolling through her social media.

Once he really started becoming bored with watching her, there was a light touch against his shoulder and Elizabeth’s voice said, “Okay, you can go ahead and turn around.”

He pressed one heel onto the tile and turned, scanning the lobby. There weren’t many places she could’ve hidden it. His eyes flicked to the unoccupied seats. Shoving it under one of the couch or seat cushions would be obvious, and she didn’t seem the type that went for obvious, but he would be remiss if he didn’t at least check them.

He walked over to the seats, lingering against the rug that sat between a the row of seats. Bumping the tip of his shoe against the rug, he didn’t feel any hard, watch shaped lumps, so he ruled that out. As he leaned down toward the seats, he couldn’t see that they’d been recently shifted or disturbed, but he still lifted the cushions up just to show Elizabeth he was making an obvious effort of searching.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw her standing a few feet behind him, watching him with her arms behind her back. At least they weren’t crossed anymore.

He exhaled and pressed his lips together, picking up a book sitting in one of the chairs and flipped through it. He set it back down when he didn’t find the watch pressed between the pages. Where else might she have put it? In some little, discrete corner?

But the lobby was wide open, and the corners were visible. There weren’t any curtains on the windows she could’ve placed it behind. Maybe she’d put it behind one of the potted plants in one of the corners? Or–

Oh. The potted plants.

He smiled to himself.

Heading to the potted fern closest to the section of chairs he’d been inspecting, he walked in a circle around the pot until he stopped at a spot where the soil appeared to have been disturbed. He reached into the pot and brushed the dirt aside, revealing a cheap watch with some soil smeared on the face of it. He took it out of its little grave and shook it, dislodging some of the dirt that had collected on it.

Holding it up by one strap, he turned, smiling at her. “There you go.”

Elizabeth walked over to him and took the watch from him, rubbing the hem of her shirt against its face. “Hm,” she said, turning it over in her hands.

“Okay, let’s sit down and I’ll tell you about Mrs. Newstead.” She waved her hand and started to walk towards the chair with the abandoned book in it.

Red glanced down, shrugged, and started to follow her. He had no intentions of seeing her investigation through to the end. He would only use this Marston Phillips identity until he was satisfied that he’d lost Ives and Nikoli.

But this wouldn’t be a bad way to spend a few days. Helping a clever, beautiful young woman trying to track down some stolen property? Red couldn’t really think of a better way to spend his time at the moment.


End file.
